Imperfect
by demondreaming
Summary: Cat's not perfect, but I keep thinking she is. A Tori-centric fic. Rated M for selfsmut.


**Disclaimer: Victorious is not owned by me, nor by the stale taco found residing deep within my pantry (despite said taco having learned the english language).**

**/**

Cat.

She's perfect.

I wipe the dreamy smile off my face.

No, she's not. She's really not. I know that.

Still, I can't stop watching her. I'd be worried about her catching me if she didn't sleep like a log. Or a child. That's what she looks like when she sleeps. Like a little kid who got taken out to the zoo, and then to the movies, then falls asleep in the car on the way home and has to be carried inside. Like the day has just been too big for her, and now she's sleeping with the kind of single-minded effort only a child can. The determined kind of sleep that can't be woken up with shaking or speaking or even slapping. That's if you could even bring yourself to wake her up. I'd kill to look that peaceful. No matter how I feel when I go to sleep, I always wake up with clenched fists, with a line in my brow that takes an effort to scrub away. Probably from some stress dream I don't remember having.

No, she's not perfect. But I keep thinking she is.

Cat shifts a bit in her sleep, letting out a soft little sound, her brow wrinkling slightly before smoothing out, knees curled up close to her. If I draw my knees up, I can touch hers. She's wearing shorts, covered in blue sheep jumping over fences, and I try to think of that rather than what lies under her shorts, or the fact that if I reached out my hand, I could easily touch her thigh. She radiates heat, sinking into my kneecaps, and I bring my knees back, legs straightening once again. My body has that itch in it, telling me to roll over, that it'd be so much more comfortable in _this_ position. I ignore it, eyes running over Cat's face. I don't feel like sleeping yet. I don't feel like turning away.

Her eyelashes are so thick, a black shutter over her eyes, mouth slightly open as she slumbers. The lips that so often twitch into a smile that makes my heart wobble.

It's creepy, I know. I'm a creep. But I can't help it. It's not like I _always_ thought of Cat like this. It's just been a while now. Since the first sleepover, really.

She invited herself over, saying there was this new movie she'd been wanting to watch and she thought I'd really enjoy it and she'd brought snacks and did I have a cat because she'd seen one in the yard and it'd looked at her when she said 'Tori'. I'd barely been at Hollywood Arts for a fortnight, and here was this girl who'd been unfalteringly nice to me, who'd made the effort to keep me from being the weird 'new girl'. Who cared if she was ditzy, if she was like glazed sugar dipped in honey? She was a friend, and a good one at that. She wasn't perfect, but she was better than nothing.

We brushed our teeth, we said goodnight, we laughed when our feet bumped each other under the blankets. And then she fell asleep, and I was left watching her. Without her giggling, without her cheery voice and effervescent personality, I was left by myself with her. She wasn't there to take me out of myself with her sheer enthusiasm. And as the feeling faded, I realised how happy I'd been in the time that we spent together. How much fun I'd had. How _good_ I felt. For just a little bit, I forgot about the pressure of being in a new school, of having to deal with Jade's stupid vendetta against me, of all the homework thrown at me constantly. For just a little bit, Cat made me like her, and it wasn't until she shut down that I realised how much like her I'm really not.

I've always thought of myself as a happy person. I mean, I worry a lot, but I have a lot to worry about. Trina doesn't care about anything, she doesn't assume any responsibility. I have to pick up the slack from that. I have to be the good daughter for my parents. I have to be... the best. As much as I try to shun the spotlight, it's where I really feel comfortable. And Cat made me feel like I was in it all the time.

That's when sleeping with her became hard. It wasn't just realising that, that she made me a better version of myself, that she made me so happy without even trying, it was just... _her_.

Sleeping with people is always awkward. Not that... not in _that _sense. I assume. The one who falls asleep first is the lucky one, and I've always had trouble sleeping. So I started watching her, just for a little while, just until I fell asleep. I grew to know the contours of her face, the whisper and sigh of her breath, the sluggish stirrings she made in her sleep. It should have relaxed me, taken away that self-consciousness I always feel when someone's in my bed, but it just made my heart pound and my head ache and my throat dry.

Cat's perfect, but she's not. She's perfect in my bed, perfect in my dreams, and so imperfect out of them.

Sometimes she throws her arms out in her sleep, like she's searching for something. She found my hand once, while my breath froze in my throat. She clutched it to her like some precious teddybear, relaxing with a contented sigh. It was about then that I realised that maybe she wasn't just my friend anymore. It wasn't anything she did, no. She was sleeping, she didn't know what she was doing. It was more the fact that I didn't move my hand for an hour. I wasn't scared of waking her up, it was just... it was nice. That was all. It felt nice to have Cat hold my hand like it was something precious.

It's not that I want to date her. Not exactly. She just makes my shoulders tight and my breath catch, and that's okay. She just makes my stomach swirl like a whirlpool, and my palms itch, and that's okay too. And then we started doing the _Funny Nugget Show_.

For the first time, I got to see how happy she made me. Actually _see_. I got to see myself smile in a way that I never have in photos, hear myself laugh without any self-consciousness. I got to see how my face lit up whenever Cat's arms wrapped around me. I got to see a Tori I never saw before, and I liked her. I got to see how she looked at Cat, how her eyes ran up and down, how she found any excuse to touch the red velvet haired girl. I got to see that this is so much more than some silly crush.

I can't stand it. How the fun fades away once she's asleep, and all I'm left with are my feelings. I can't take having her in my bed, completely oblivious. I can't take seeing her wake in the morning, slowly and cautiously, like she's foundering her way through a foggy swamp, eyes blinking widely, hands outreaching. I can't handle her rubbing her eyes, face groggy, and saying my name in a sleepy tone, like it's the first word she's ever learned. Most of all, I can't take the hug she gives me everytime, squeezing hard enough to snap my spine, her body still warm from the bed, pyjamas tousled, hanging from her hips, slipping off her shoulder. It's like we're not even pretending to be friends then. But she's not the one pretending, I am.

I pillow my head on my hand, eyes skating over Cat's peaceful face, burrowed into the blankets. If it was a crush, it would've gone away by now. It's a need. A need to touch her, to kiss her, to hear her gasp and moan and cry out my name in her sweet little voice. It makes me feel almost sick to think these things, to look at innocent, bubbly Cat and think of nothing but stripping her naked, of pressing up against her and spreading her legs. I swear my thoughts weren't always this dirty. I swear I wasn't always a creep. I can't stop thinking about it. Everytime she's in my bed, she's in my head.

She's so perfect. But she is.

The curve of her nose, the swell of her breast. The way she licks her lips, the way she bounces on her toes when she's excited. The way she says my name when I'm already close to her, so softly, so sweetly, like a tap on the shoulder. The way my hands feel on her waist, the way she laughs at my jokes even when they're awful. The way she sleeps so heavily, so that nothing can wake her.

I press my legs together, groaning. I'm sick of this, of having these rotten, perverted thoughts in my head. I mean, I know it's something you go through when you're a teenager, but why Cat? Why a girl at all? Why not Beck or Andre or someone my brain _tells _me is attractive. Why this perfect girl, with all her imperfections?

I roll onto my back, blanket heavy on my chest, inner thighs hot. If only I could just go to sleep, but how can I with this incessant throbbing? With Cat's little breaths quivering beside me, her hand curled to her mouth. I swear, she could sleep through anything.

My heart jolts in my chest. _She could sleep through anything_. My hand stops from where it rubs my thigh, dropping to my side. I turn to face her, licking my lips. "Cat?" I reach out a shaking hand, jogging her shoulder gently. "Cat? Are you awake?" I chew my lip. "Cat!"

Nothing.

I roll onto my back again, legs pressing together. This is wrong. I shouldn't even be thinking this. But there's a devil on my shoulder, and no angel to be seen. _Just once_. _Just to relieve the pressure_. Just to make it bearable when she smiles at me. Just to make me normal, for a little while.

I glance over at her again, hand creeping to undo the drawstring on my pyjama bottoms. She's sound asleep, face relaxed, breath slow and steady through her parted lips.

I swallow hard, gaze fixed on her as my fingers slip under the hem of my pants. This is wrong. This so wrong.

_I wonder what her lips taste like?_

I try to still my hips from their instinctive jerk as my fingertips graze over my panties. My heart's pounding in my chest, holding the breath in my lungs and shushing it, and I let it out slowly, mouth open, as quietly as possible. I'm aching now, aching just to touch her. But this is wrong enough already. I can't touch her, but... I can touch me. I glance over.

Cat doesn't move.

My hand gets bolder, crawling underneath my panties. I can feel the heat radiating from me, feel the slickness on my hand already. I can never get to sleep when she's here. I'm always left trying to forget what my libido so insistently remembers. My fingers shake as they dip to find my clit. The merest brush almost sends a moan escaping, held back by the click of my teeth. I'm so sensitive. When she's not around... I'll admit, I'll think about her when I do this sometimes. And it's good, it's great even, apart from the soulrending guilt that comes after. But this? This is a whole other level. I can barely touch myself without jerking, tip of my tongue squeezed between my teeth.

_What would it be like to kiss her neck? To drag my teeth over her pulse? To suck her collarbones, bite her breast?_

I let out an unsteady breath, hand working, eyes flickering closed for a moment. It feels so good, so, so good. I bite back a moan, muscles in my stomach tensing.

_What would it be like to be inside her? To have her arch against me? To have her moan my name?_

"Tor...ri?"

My spine snaps like a mouse trap, face flushing, panic transfixing me.

Cat's eyebrows are dipping, tongue running over her lips. She shifts, eyelashes matting.

"G-go back to s-sleep, Cat." I stutter, hand still frozen inside my pants, fingers still hovering over that sensitive nub.

Cat rolls over, making a soft, drowsy sound. "'Kay 'kay."

I let out a shuddering breath, hand scrabbling out of my pants, resting flat beside me. My heart's still beating a mile a minute, cheeks hot. That was close. _Way_ too close. Call it karma.

Cat gasps suddenly, sitting up straight, and my breath trips in my lungs, coming out as a spluttering cough. "Tori!"

She looks down at me, eyes wide and awake.

"Wh-what?" I say weakly. It feels like my chest is being crushed by some giant boulder, snapping my ribs like twigs.

"Can I get a glass of water?"

I stare at Cat for a moment, a smile stretched across her face. "What." I say flatly, a muscle underneath my eye twitching.

Her eyebrows turn up, hands sweeping her ruby hair forward. "Pleeease? I'm thirsty."

"S-sure."

I somehow ooze my way out of bed, slipping out of my room and leaning against the closed door, eyes shut. I think I've aged about twenty years in the last five minutes. Eyes opening, heartbeat calming, I glance down at my hand. If only it'd kept out of my pants. If only this wasn't the _only_ night that Cat's ever woken up before morning. If _only_ Cat hadn't eaten all those crackers before bed.

If only I could stop thinking about her.

I pad down the hall to the bathroom. I'll just wash my hands and go get her that glass of water. And then I can just forget about this whole stupid thing, and actually get some sleep.

I end up bent over the sink, hand working inside my pants, mouth pressed to my forearm, Cat's face in my mind. I just... I can't stand it. Being so close to her, and not being able to do anything about it. She's in my head, and I can't get her out. I can never have her, and it'd be okay if I could stop thinking about it.

But she's so perfect. I'm just Tori.

I wash my hands, avoiding my gaze in the mirror, before heading to kitchen and pouring a glass of water.

Cat sips it enthusiastically when I bring it back, squealing and pinching the bridge of her nose when she drinks it too fast. Probably shouldn't have gotten her ice water.

I lie back down in the bed, muscles relaxing like I've been working all day. It feels like I have been. Cat sets the glass down, turning to me, hand pillowing her head. "Tori?"

"Yeah Cat?"

Her eyebrows turn up pitifully, mouth twisting. "Can I have cuddles?"

For a moment, I swear there's the sound of glass cracking in my brain. Maybe the reason I can't stop thinking about her is because she doesn't want me to. Or rather, she makes it so I can't, whether she's aware of it or not. "Sure. Back it up." I lift my arm, Cat rolling to face away from me, shuffling herself back until she's snug against me. We snap together like two puzzle pieces, my arm slung around Cat's waist.

Is this what it's like for all teenagers? This incessant arousal? Does it ever go away?

"'Night Tori!" Cat chirps, snuggling her head into the pillow.

"'Night Cat." Regardless, I'm going to have to make it go away. I'm going to have to learn something Trina's always boasted of mastering in her karate classes; self control.

I'm not perfect, and neither is Cat.

But I keep thinking she is.

/

**A/N: Well this is a lovely little beast written for a certain gentlelady named Grace. I do hope it hasn't disappointed.**

**I can't bear the thought of you reading, monocle slipping from your widened eyes to shatter on the ground, followed by a mouthful of hot tea that startles the greyhound slumbering at your feet. Followed then by you storming through the halls of your mansion, finger waving forcefully, demanding the newspapers be called, the judges be informed, _because this is not what you expected_.**

**So I'm going to check the newspapers tomorrow, and if I see the headline _Woman Displeased With Fanfic, Dog Treated For Severe Burns, _then I think I shall weep the bitterest of tears and retreat to my cave.**


End file.
